


Gaobucks

by mehs



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other, alternate universes from when you were 16, terrible barristas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2020-10-26 04:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20735948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehs/pseuds/mehs
Summary: There's a new coffee shop near Gao Enterprises. Terrible coffee, terrible services and yet Veta Lopis still gives it money.  What's more enticing? The mystery or the anxious barista named Fred?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thalius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/gifts).

I. 

If you asked Veta Lopis what the Gao Corporation did, she would tell you that they did everything. The company was vast and it dealt with everything from wellness and pharmaceuticals to designing hotels and spas. It was a vast corporation that owned the entire city, and the majority of the county and its dwellers were its employees. Veta had the honor of ensuring that those people could feel safe in the building, and out of it. She knew everything about every shop that lined the streets, right down to the hotels’ suppliers of delicate soaps. 

When Ekkos Andust retired, and moved to a nice cabana by the beach, she had the distinct displeasure of changing her routine. Every morning at 0900 hours, she would go to his coffee shop, drink coffee, make smalltalk about the kids and then go to work. Now, as she stood in front of the new store with their new owners, she had to wonder who would want to get sucked into this life. 

“Ah, a new customer!” 

Somehow the voice coming right after the chime of the bell was too soon. Ekkos was hard of hearing in his old age, and he only knew to have her coffee ready for her by the time of day. The fact that she had to deal with someone that didn’t really care about the people, but rather the business, gave her a bad taste in her mouth. 

“Good morning,” She greeted as she realized how … sterile the shop had become. Where Ekkos had comfortable chairs and nooks, corners and hidden cozy cubbies, it had been replaced with stark chairs and tables with generic music playing in the background. 

It was like she was at the scene of a murder. 

“Welcome to our new shop! You must be Veta Lopis, Ekkos told us much about you.” 

She had never met Ira Halal, but from his file it seemed that the man was part of a growing trend of venture capitalists that were as aggressive as an imperialist regime. 

“I’m sure he did,” She replied coolly, “I want to welcome you to the Gao Corporation’s headquarters. You got very lucky to be so close to the building.”

“Yes, yes, I’m very excited to serve you all.” 

It was then that she noticed the barista standing by the coffee machine, and she could have sworn that in this immaculate shop, he was the one thing that seemed out of place. Dark blue eyes, wide build and a sharp jaw; it was like the physical space around him was cut out and he inhabited a plane behind it. 

“Fred, why don’t you get Head of Security Lopis some coffee?” 

The barista looked at Halal for a moment before giving the same, stoic expression to her and turning around to fill up a plastic cup. 

“Two creams, two sugars - ” She added quickly, noticing that he was about to put the lid on the coffee. Odd enough, the man had no customer service skills. 

“Here you go, ma’am.” 

The cup looked tiny in his hand, and he didn’t even put a sleeve on it before handing it to her. Either he couldn’t feel that it was hot (great, she paid for cold coffee) or he didn’t even register the heat. The calluses on his hands looked like they were either from manual labor, and based on his physique she pinned him as someone who was ex-military. 

“We look forward to seeing you after training is complete.” Halal emphasized, looking at Fred directly, “Please come back soon.” 

She could have sworn that she was being pushed out of that coffee shop while he was slipping on the heat sleeve and the door closed with a flourish. Well, that was one way of making sure that she came back for more. 

II. 

Fred was the worst barista that she had ever met. Standing in line one day, she realized that no one was actually giving him an order, he was just giving them the same hot cup of black coffee and pointing to where the creams and sugars were. There were three others there that day; two women and one man that occupied the same negative space that Fred did. There was Kelly, who worked the espresso bar and pushed out orders as soon as Fred rang them in, there was Linda whom everyone avoided and then there was John, who stood in the back constantly reading from a clipboard and doing inventory. 

“You have friends today.” She said once it was her turn. Fred automatically gave her her cup, with the cream and sugars already in it and was already charging her employee account. Efficient. 

“They finished training a little later than I did.” He replied, shifting awkwardly when he learned that she was the last person that he had to talk today. 

“Where’s Halal?” She tried to ask nonchalantly, sipping her coffee even though her eyes never left his. This garnered a reaction from John, who looked up from his clipboard but didn’t say anything. 

Fred shot him a quick look, which was met with a shrug (was it a shrug? It looked far too mechanical to be one) to imply…? 

“He just owns the place. Doubt he’s here.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

There was a long silence between the two of them before she finally asked, “Are you going to introduce me to your friends?” 

“They have name tags.” 

Cheeky, Veta thought, maybe it was going to be harder to get to why this coffee shop was so weird after all.


	2. Locally Sourced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veta meets a human golden retriever, and there's just something about the Gao building that's interesting

It is evident that there is something going on in that coffee shop, Veta thought as she sipped her terrible coffee and stared at Sam, the gentle giant that was currently playing with a golden retriever. The staff was too varied, yet they all looked roughly the same: too tall to be comfortable, too broad to be nimble, and too out of place for the kind warmth of a coffee shop. 

Sam must have noticed that she was staring holes in the back of his head because he had picked up the golden retriever and was practically kissing it when he came over to her. 

“Something wrong, miss?” He asked. He was far more friendly than John was, looking at his tablet and pretending to do inventory with Cortana. Sam, she noted, was an anomaly in all of this. Even though he was the biggest, he gave the sense that he was the coziest, the one that you came to when you had a bad day and he’d know how to make your order just absolutely right. 

“This place is picking up,” Veta replied, earning a small smile on his face not akin to the dog in his arms that had his tongue sticking out. “You’re reaching out to new clientele.” 

Sam’s laugh made her feel warm, and welcome as he gave the dog a kiss and put him down. 

“It’s new on the menu, Pupaccino.” 

It wasn’t new on the menu, the menu was extremely basic compared to other places. Plus, she always saw Cortana with John’s tropical smoothie in her hand and they just started offering that too. 

“Looking for Fred?” he asked offhandedly as he went to go get her a refill. She was slightly started at the question, wondering if she had become that much of a regular that Fred told his cohorts about her. 

“I supposed I’m here on the weekend shift.” She retorted, thankfully taking the cup from his hand to give her something to do than to focus on something other than Fred for a moment. 

“Didn’t realize that Gao was open on the weekends.” Sam replied, but then he motioned to the people in line behind him, “Then again, we’re here aren’t we?” 

“When you do everything, I suppose that everyday is a work day.” 

“You gotta keep those people safe, it’s important.” It seemed earnest and genuine, but there was just something nagging her that made it seem … odd the way that Sam said it. Like it was something ingrained into his core being. 

“Thanks, Sam.” She said, taking the lid that he provided her to cover her coffee, “I’ll take that to heart.” 

\-- 

“She seems nice,” Cortana mentioned off-handedly to John that night. He gave her a look without looking at her that meant that he wasn’t too impressed or he hadn’t thought of it much. Either way, it was telling how he felt about Veta Lopis. 

“I like her.” Sam replied as they made their way through the building that night, hands in his coat pocket looking for something that John said that they had to bring. 

“You like everyone.” Linda corrected from across the way, peering at Sam with a critical eye. He shrugged in response, almost hiding his comically huge frame behind Kelly as he said it. Fred didn’t say anything in response, but John raised an eyebrow at him slightly (which, in Fred’s defense is the worst he could do beyond a shrug) as they made their way to the Gao building. 

“You’re in, by the way.” Cortana said, interrupting them all to start work. Like a switch being flipped, the five of them set to work making their way through the Gao Corporation service entrance that was next to the back of the coffee shop. Linda, from her vantage point at the highest point beyond the building flashed green across their comms as Cortana worked on getting the certificates that they needed to get into the building. 

“Checking comms, Blue Team.” John stated as green flashed across the board on his wrist. Sam provided that lobby was clear, Fred stated that hallway was clear, Kelly gave the all-clear up to the elevator and Linda said that they’re free to move. 

“Transmitted access code to get access to upper levels.” 

“Clearance provided.” 

They moved as one fluid team, always knowing and reacting as if they were one organism. They made it up to the security floor, Veta’s floor, and breached access. 

“You have thirty minutes.” 

\--- 

The next morning was a nightmare. She got a call at roughly 3 am to come back to the building because there had been a breach. The way that Erlo had phrased it, there might as well have been a murder involved. She swung her legs out of bed, not that she was asleep (she never slept anymore) and was there in a half hour. 

A part of her looked at the coffee shop, wishing it was open but she’d have to settle with the filtered dirt that they had. 

“What’s the situation?” She asked once she got inside the building. In the long elevator ride up, she could have sworn that it smelt slightly different than when she left. 

“At approximately midnight, someone gained access to our on-prem servers, and pulled all the information that we had.” 

“... the entire company was breached?” Veta asked, incredulously, “They would have had to come on site.” 

Her heart dropped, “No one was hurt, right?” 

Arlo shook his head, “Everyone is fine. No casualties.” 

It was like a huge weight was lifted from her chest. Veta didn’t know if she had it in her to see one of the team, no-- her friends -- dead. On the other hand though, they weren’t novices that broke into the building. 

“Do we know where to start?” Arlo asked her, as if she had already been coming up with a plan for all of this ahead of schedule. She valued his trust in her, she really did, and she did what she did best - find the truth. 

“I’ll need to find a full dump of all assets that we have from the moment of the breach going back six hours. I’ll also need to interview everyone that was on shift tonight.” She said, as the elevator doors dinged open to their floor. Veta pulled off her jacket, and pulled out her chair. 

“I’ll need overtime for this Arlo,” she joked. 

He laughed, “I’ll pay you in coffee for now.” 


End file.
